All posts by johncohn

Sunday – updated Samstones site

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Coming to the end of a very needed, very restful two weeks vacation. I can't remember the last time I took so much time off. I really didn't have any goals for the time off other than to relax. And relax I did.
I did get some good projects done. Made some good progress on a longtime musical project I'm doing with friends. Help to run initial setup of the Burlington generator maker space. Saw friends. Stayed up late, slept late… Spent time with family. Checked off all the things I had hoped to do.

My last project was to update the Samstone's website. (Samstones.org). That's a tribute site I created for Sam and the Samstone's project back shortly after Sam died in 2006. It was my first experience with WordPress and with writing PHP. Since then I've done a lot of WordPress blogs and I've gotten reasonably good at keeping them current. But, i was always too afraid to change the Samstone's page because of all of the PHP packing I had to do back then to get it to work. I was so worried that all of the stories and Samstone placements etc. would get lost if I made a mistake.

More recently I started to worry that my old WordPress version (2.02) was going to fall off the edge of the earth. I could no longer get plug-ins etc. and there was no facilities for exporting content. I'd written a bunch of Python code at one point to extract it for archive but there was no way to keep it moving with essentially seven-year-old code.

So the last couple of days I bit the bullet back everything up as best I could and slowly moved the thing up through seven versions of WordPress. I have to give it to the WordPress guys they've made it's very easy and robust to jump levels. What you get past a certain point (2.7) all the updates are automatic.

So a few minutes ago I just finished bringing the thing to current level(3.8) . It will make things a whole lot easier to maintain and extend . It makes me feel good that this site that talks about Sam, organ donation, Sam's Legacy fund, and sandstones will now be easier to maintain.

I feel good that even after seven years the site gets quite a bit of traffic. I think Samstone's has turned out to be a very good way of keeping Sam's spirit moving in the world.Thanks to all of you out there who have sent in Samstone placements or fines or requests. Keep them coming!

As everyone gets back to work this week , i wish you all a happy and productive 2014. Let's make it so!

Night all, night Sam
– Me

 

Saturday night – Build and Burn

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Cool set of contrasts today.. or are they really contrasts. We had our first work day at Burlington generator makerspace today.. through the course of the day we had about 20 volunteers show up to help us create a public makerspace for northwestern Vermont.

Most of the day was spent painting the crumbling green walls of the memorial annex and building the 50 square foot cubicals that will be our beginning studio space.. It was really great working with everyone today.. There were so many folks that I did not know.. it continues to amaze me that I can still be meeting new makers in such a small state after being at it so long. It gives me hope that there will be great creativity, fellowship and economic good that comes from getting more of us together at a place like generator.

YOu can get a feel for the whole day by watching this timelapse I took..    note the painting and building !

generator setup from john cohn on Vimeo.

It felt good to be helping transform this space.. As I recounted several times.. I have many memories of this room.. it’s where we held the dinner after sam’s memorial ..   (you can still check out the wonderful music from that service here)

There aint nothing folks wont do for Pizza !

I finally got to meet Matt.. who i’d corresponded with before. He had Physics equations tattooed on his arm. How cool is that ?!?!?!

Gerneator duty took longer than expected today, so I didn’t get home until 3.. but there was still time for a quick snowshoe in the woods with dian and the dogs.. We were enjoying the nearly 20 degree weather.. almost 4 degrees warmer than yesterday !..   Check out the beutiful sunset…

The sunset even followed us home !

The big event for the evening was about bout building and burning. Chris was having another of his wonderful burns.. This one was Old Man Winter. He was sceduled ot burn on the solstice.. but it was the day of the ice storm.. so chris had to call off the burn.. Good thing too, because the new date of today allowed so many more people to come and check it out.. there must have been 100 folks there tonight to see fire danceign and the burn.. What a great spectacle. great company, really great homemade beer.. and great, great fire !  I do love fire.

Here’s chris looking happy before the burn.

Chris announced the beginning of the burn

First came the fire dancers.. Kim began.

THen Chris’s friend TIm (?) from Main did some amazing rope dart tricks

Then poi

Then an amazing and terrifying quad staff

Finally kima nd Chris approached the man.. kim held out her hand torch and chris blew fire across  her to light the man..

He went up like a rocket !

A really amazing day…  now to sleep

nite all, nite sam

-me

Friday night – 17 below

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Last day of vacation and made the mistake of taking some work calls.. .. but other than that.. i managed to do some good in world. we did our second day of prep for the Generator makerspace. tomorrow is a big prep day as well.

i ended up taking about 3 hours of  work calls .. i took some of them upstairs  in the auditorium.. it was pretty cool being the only one in such a big space.

Spent the day working more than i should on a vacation day.. but got lots done.

tonight we ventured out into the cold to hearour freind Gary and  FOG (Friends of Gary) play at On The Rise… the place was packed despite the cold..

And it WAS cold.. the windows inside On The Rise were covered with ice

The car told us it was 17 degrees below zero !!!!

confirmed at home !

dont know how low it will go..   i’ll let you know

Nite all, nite sam

-me

 

Thursday night – high point of the day

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The high point of the day.. was…. -6 degrees F…  Though it hovered around -10 for most of the afternoon. It’s about -12 now and goign lower tonight.. and even lower tomorrow night.

believe it or not, i love it when it’s like this. It really makes you feel the the elements. I’ll take this over 90 degrees any day of the week..

Te real high point of my day was our first official meeting at the Generator makerspace . Chris, Israel, Rob , Eric and I met at the Memorial auditorium annex and officially took possession of the space… at least for awhile . We now have a key and wireless access.. Chris and the others are now sketching up how the studi spaces and tool layout will look. It’s really exciting . What comes next should be pretty interesting and fun to watch. I am setting up an timelapse to watch the pace come together. I’ll share that from time to time so you can see our progress…

Second highpoint of the day was a lovely dinner here with deb’s family and their cousins Liz and Kayla from new Zealand.. they were a hoot !.

ok.. at -12 i need to go jump in bed.. we need to huddle together to stay warm on a night like this … sounds nice !

note all, nite sam

-me